To roll my eyes when someone says their favourite book is a classic

[Eyeroller100]

I'm an avid reader and I'm always looking for new books to read so I often ask people what their favourite books are. AIBU to roll my eyes every time someone mentions one of the classics.

I know people do love them and they may well be their faves, but I am quite skeptical as if they are saying it to make themselves sound better.

I've tried reading a lot of classics and I just can't get into them at all! They are pure effort

It's not my absolute favourite any more, but Jane Eyre was my favourite book for years and years. The only reason I don't reread it much is that I reread it so often I can practically recite it.

It's got everything. It's ace.

I wasn't thinking of reader-response theory specifically, more a slew of different approaches (including feminism, postcolonial approaches, new historicism/cultural materialism) that have challenged the idea of the canon in a variety of ways, but who also seek to bring a political lens (again, of many kinds) to interpretation.

Annie, I feel the same about Jane Eyre and as an adult one of the things I particularly get from it is what an extraordinary and deft portrayal it is of one who has lived Jane’s life - a strong-willed child who is abused and neglected and whose spirit is systematically crushed, but who retains enough of herself to do what she needs to do to survive and escape from her ‘destiny’ as a lone woman dependent for life on the charity of the institution that did the crushing. I don’t perceive her as ‘woe is me’ at all - rather a bit unflinching about the cruelty of the world and the precariousness of her position in it. I like that she’s not ‘feisty’, it would have been totally unrealistic.

Heartbreaking when you consider how much of Charlotte and her sisters seems to have been poured into it, and particularly the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth.

Might read it this evening, actually!

I really hope it's not Amis jassy
I've got a proper hate on for him this week and I've no idea why.

He is dull and very pleased with himself, that may be why.

I've got a proper hate on for him this week and I've no idea why.

I have faith in future generations! I hope they’ll choose an enjoyable spot of le Carré or even () some of the shockingly middlebrow and lowbrow names mentioned in this thread for a bit of late 20th century reading, rather than suffering through Amis.

I haven't read any Martin Amis but much of the post-1970 British "literary" fiction I've read (Julian Barnes, Malcolm Bradbury, William Boyd, Penelope Fitzgerald, Anita Brookner) hasn't seemed to me to be likely to be read by future generations.

Someone mentioned Graham Swift's Waterland as a book they read at university. I absolutely adored Waterland but, as is often the case (because I'm even further behind the times with films than I am with books), I read the book a long time before I saw the movie: I'm not sure what effect swapping them around would have had.

This thread reminds me of the attitude of an exbf. We bonded over our passion for music.

We split for various reasons, but I think I knew it was doomed when I was excitedly relaying the exciting part of a book I was reading, and he cut me off, saying I was 'showing off'.
He was by no means stupid, but he wasn't well read. I didn't care about that, but he had such a strange attitude towards me because I enjoyed reading. The fact my degree is in English Lit may have given him some clue!
I still don't care what other people read /watch/ listen to/ enjoy/ plant in their gardens. I'll happily judge you on your actions, your taste is irrelevant.

I still can’t get my head around WH being written by such a young women or had so little experience of the world outside her little village and seemingly none of relationships or romance (not that it is a romantic story)

Funnily enough, it reads to me exactly like a book written by a person with no experience of the world but simply an intense imagination. It's true of all the Brontës' work and I think why their men and relationships are so disturbing. I'm always amazed when people cite Cathy and Heathcliff as a great romance - it makes me think that they haven't actually read the book.

I'm also amazed that it is so many people's favourite novel. I re-read it a few years ago (having also read it for the first time far too early, at the age of about 8 or 9 and obviously not understood most of it) and thought it was dreadful.

But then absolutely loads of people say The Wind in the Willows is one of their favourite childhood books. I read it to my own children a several years ago and was astonished at the long, turgid descriptive passsges.

Oh, and Bridget Jones' Diary is absolutely not a great work of literature. It is a mildly entertaining story that would take up a plane journey and be quickly forgotten.

@Ontopofthesunset I had the exact same experience with WITW. I hated reading it to DS. I had loved it as a child.

I am an avid reader from an early age. I read treasure island, Robinson Crusoe, Moby dick, little women as a 9 year old and loved all those sorts of books. I've read all of dickens, Jane Austen etc. Thomas Hardy brilliant but the books I turn to to re read really depend on my mood. William horwoods duncton collection brilliant and I read them when I feel life gets on top of me. I read mysteries and Agatha Christie for light reading. But funny enough I've got into a couple if books/ plays my dgd is studying. An inspector calls, before that Holes, and Shakespeare too! I'll read anything even a cereal box! I'm no snob I read because I love reading, Lord of the rings, war and peace, Harry Potter, absolutely anything except Mills and Boon and 50 shades of rubbish! John le Carre etc etc. My dgd the same. So I say all enjoy reading whatever the genre who cares! Lose yourselves in the wonderful world of books!

I'm also amazed that it is so many people's favourite novel. I re-read it a few years ago (having also read it for the first time far too early, at the age of about 8 or 9 and obviously not understood most of it) and thought it was dreadful

I can genuinely never understand why people are amazed that others have tastes differing from their own. I'd be more amazed if someone loved WH as I did along with my other favourites

I'm not amazed at the fact of people having differing tastes. I'm just amazed at what those tastes are. Obviously I am using the word 'amazed' for hyperbolic effect, but, as one who is strong in my own opinons, it is easy to be astonished that others can be so wrong .

Loads of people obviously love Wuthering Heights. I love lots of books other people loathe. But of course if you have strong reasons for your likes and dislikes you're always going to be a bit surprised that others don't agree with you.

Interesting discussion on Jane Eyre. I think she actually is very resilient - she walks out on Rochester when she has literally nowhere to go. That section of the book where she leaves is incredibly brave and incredibly self-respecting. The walk she does is extraordinary.

When DH and I got married, we rented the house that was supposed to be the basis for Rochester's place. Some of the furniture described in the book was once in this house. It wasn't a big romantic gesture, but a reflection of the fact that we'd had to cancel the wedding once before, and though the circumstances of this weren't entirely similar to those in the novel, they weren't actually that different either. It was my way of coping with the fact that I wasn't going to have the big, perfect day with no history.

I think she actually is very resilient - she walks out on Rochester when she has literally nowhere to go. That section of the book where she leaves is incredibly brave and incredibly self-respecting. The walk she does is extraordinary.

Yes, this! She wasn’t willing to compromise who she was or what she believed was right, even though the alternative was both awful and terrifying.

Whisky, that house sounds so interesting. Do you mind sharing where it is?

Loads of people obviously love Wuthering Heights. I love lots of books other people loathe. But of course if you have strong reasons for your likes and dislikes you're always going to be a bit surprised that others don't agree with you.

I have had lengthy and impassioned, er, ‘discussions’ with friends about the relative merits of Nick and Lawrie Marlow. They’re very polarising.

Jassy - It's North Lees Hall. It used to be owned by the Vivat Trust, but they went bankrupt. I think it's now privately let.

I find i dislike books with long descriptive passages. I have a short attention span and like to be getting on with the plot! Also i visualise quickly and already have an idea of what things look like within a sentence.

So wuthering heights i don’t get on with. Or tolkien. While i do love fantasy and sci fi, three chapters in and they’re still wandering round that fucking wood.

I would presume those that love tolkien and wh do so for the reasons i dislike them- they like the description and the worlds and pictures it draws from them.

People have different minds and see things in different ways. Have different senses and emotions and different ways of accessing them.

So it makes sense to me that not everyone will like the same books, or art, or music. Doesn’t make them more or less, just different.

This thread makes me want to re-read Jane Eyre. I didn't really get on with it as a teenager.

I found a 1950s copy of I Capture the Castle at my parents's house over Christmas, which I'm reading for the first time. Can't believe I'd never read it before.

Really enjoying your contributions to this thread Hermione!

@TheDowagerCuntess ICTC has one of the most sublime opening lines to any novel. Lovely book.

raven sorry if it came across that I was trying to convince you to agree, that wasn't my intention. None of them would be so enduring if we all saw the same things in them.

If anyone truly enjoys George Eliot would they be able to explain why? I don't, and I've never discussed her with anyone who does either. So it would be interesting to know if and why anyone is a big fan.

Oh I ADORE I Capture The Castle, Dowager!. It's a real treat.

And I don't think Bridget Jones is a great work of literature either - I'm not a particular fan of it! I just wanted to make the point that it is likely to become a classic late 20th century novel partly because of how zeighgeisty is it, and partly because it is rooted in literary tradition that has produced many of the novels people have cited as being classics. I don't think "classic" and "great literature" are necessarily the same, though they often overlap.

Skiiltan, I agree re: British literary novels. Literally all the books people have mentioned here as being favourites, or classics, are books with plot and/or vivid characters. I rarely read modern literary fiction unless it's had really great reviews because it's often lacking in both departments and just leaves me cold. The prose may be beautiful and technically skilled but I can't see a lot of it lasting through the ages.

On the subject of Wuthering Heights, has anyone read "How to be a heroine"? It's a sort of memoir, the hook being that the author feels she's been making the wrong choices in life by trying to be Cathy instead of Jane. So she looks back at all her favourite formative novels and tries to work out what the heroines can teach her. www.goodreads.com/book/show/22747685-how-to-be-a-heroine

@HermionesRightHook

How to Be A Herione is superb. The bio of Anne Bronte (Take Courage) by the same author is excellent too

Ooh, I've not read that one, thanks Jacques!

To all the WH fans, have you read Kazuo Ishiguro? His works give you the same sense of desperate sadness/lost opportunist that WH does. I love him!